Junior Readers

I have been asked to judge the county Round of the YFC competition for Junior Reading and have also had the task of selecting a book to be used. I visited our local Waterstones and spent an hour or so browsing the children section for 10 to 14 year olds. Gosh there are so many books to choose from, some familiar from my childhood still being read by today's generation, which I find very interesting. Some very different and from the covers positively scary!

After much deliberation I decided on this book. Michael Morpurgo had once again delivered with this tale on the life of Pinocchio! It ticked most of the boxes for me. It is easy to read therefore will hopefully encourage younger competitors but has a slightly older slant to it in some ways. The competition is designed to get youngsters to try public speaking which is such a valuable skill for them to acquire .

They are given the book title three weeks before the competition to read . The team consists of three club members who are required to read a set passage out loud to the audience at the competition, which they will be given 20 mins before they are due to be on stage. Each team reads the same three passages on the evening and are judged on expression , fluency, accuracy and audibility !

Once our county round has been completed then I am lucky enough to get the winning team to train to go to the next step of the competition. I just love working with these super children. I am glad to report that the art of Reading is not dead yet!!

Another mostly desk bound day for me. The Mr Tbay's were busy erecting the signs for our new units for letting. The weather has been rather unsettled to say the least with snow settling a few miles for here. Rain has been the order of the day and it is now getting much colder .

Farming - Two hauling compost.